I have been playing guitar semi-professionally for over 30 years and now I have finally decided to jump head first into the digital modeling. So here is my questions I normally have a distorted tone as well a clean tone and use effects thru the amp however I’m not using an amp and will using monitors and FOH so do I just setup a distorted tone and clean tone on the qc and stomp box effects as needed or do create presets for individual songs which is 100 songs any input will be greatly appreciated thx
My bands play covers and originals. I generally have a couple of presets with my favorite clean-leaning presets (think Fender type amps) and a couple of presets featuring dirtier foundations (think Marshall type amps). You can consolidate clean and dirty amp models though into a single preset if you prefer. I still set up clean, crunch, and lead scenes for both types of presets (clean, dirty). Those serve as catch-all kitchen sink presets with a bunch of effects in the signal chain. Not necessarily in constant use, but available when needed. I also create an all-purpose acoustic guitar preset or two. These serve as my primary “working” presets. Makes it simpler to prepare for gigs and many songs work with just these few presets. This also makes it simpler to add tweaks in fewer presets as I get better at using my modeler and gain additional knowledge regarding preset creation.
I then set up additional custom presets, where needed, for example on certain covers or originals, that nail a specific tone. Or, for tunes where the arrangement requires me to setup scenes to move quickly between, for example, intro, rhythm, lead, outro.
I used to set up a separate preset for every song, but I found managing them and swapping their order for every gig tedious when every song had its own preset, unless you play the same set(s) every night, YMMV. Use whatever method works best for you but this is how I do it after many years of using a modeler for live performance. Heh, maybe I just got lazier: grin:
Do you know about preset mode, scene mode, stomp mode and hybrid mode? If not, I would suggest to read the manual and watch some videos of NDSP on YouTube. Also check out some factory presets to get an idea of what is possible.
There is no easy answer to your question as it depends on what you wanna do. But maybe ask yourself this: how many “sounds” do you need within one song and how many do you need across all songs. And by “sounds” I mean for example:
sound 1: clean + reverb
sound 2: clean + chorus and delay
sound 3: distortion + phaser
etc…
Because if you only need a few sounds, then one preset is enough as you can get 8 different sounds in scene mode for example. Hybrid mode and preset mode offer you even more, but have other limitations which may or may not be relevant for you.
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Good point! Neglected to mention that. I use hybrid mode, so I always have both scenes and stomps available.
Thanks for the input I’m working thru the process one other question what is the purpose of the scene? Thanks
